Well-Aged Music

My taste is eclectic; here you will find everything from folk, blues, and jug-band music to experimental bluegrass and avant-garde classical music. My bias is certainly towards acoustic music with little production and much enthusiasm, but my sole selection criteria is Quality.

Disclaimer

The music on this site is mostly old, hard-to-find, or under-noticed music. Many of the musicians are dead. As for the living musicians, I put their music here because I want to spread and publicize it, not because I want to rip them off. Musicians, like artists, are a hard-working and under-compensated lot, and I highly recommend that if you like the music you find here, you seek out their other recordings. Of course, if any musician finds their music here and wants it removed, contact me and I'll happily oblige.

Taxonomy

Roots - Where our music came from; our shared heritage. It may not sound contemporary, but if you listen you can hear its echoes in everything that has come since.

Branches - A bridge between cultures, styles, musical languages. As a meeting of two or more rivers, the sources mingle and new life is born.

Fruits - Music ripened to perfection. It has absorbed the roots, grown in the sun of contemporary life, and made a new statement. Sweet and nourishing.

Seeds - The start of something new. These musicians went out on a limb, and did something never done before. Whether they had followers or not, their music retains the stamp of individuality and experimentation.

The other known picture of The Irate Pirate

If ye wants to support the pirate in his plunderin's, and ye be headin' on board the Rapidshare vessel, use this gangway.

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May 15, 2012

This is totally sweet. A must-listen. Mustmustmustmustmust. Really. I can just put this album on repeat and not get tired of it. In fact, it just gets better.

From a comment left on my blog:

Toumani’s music is certainly a life changer! I went as far as actually learning to play his particular arrangements of Manding kora music on the guitar. Perhaps you’d like to take a listen: http://soundcloud.com/olly-barnett/derek-gripper-tubaka
The full album is due for release under the name “One Night on Earth: Music from the Strings of Mali” from http://www.derekgripper.com after the 12th of May. Yours, Derek Gripper (South African Guitarist)